


Let's See If You Believe In Me

by leupagus



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Family, Gen, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For waldorph and our Yuleterrible exchange; she wanted "SOME GODDAMN FLUFF OR SOME GODDAMN GOOD PORN (or if you wanted to do something with the sisters...basically I want Abbie-centered fic. No incest.)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's See If You Believe In Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waldorph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/gifts).



> Please note that I wrote this without seeing the most recent (and I believe Christmas-themed) episode of Sleepy Hollow, so this may not jive with what happened there.

Jenny shows up at 7 o’clock on Christmas Eve; when Abbie opens the door, she waves a bunch of bungie cords in her face. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Abbie says, flat.

“You’re the one who’s all about being sisters again,” she says, rattling the bungie cords. “And I know you didn’t bother to get a tree, so let’s move, Miss Millie.”

Jenny hasn’t called her Miss Millie in almost fifteen years. “Fine, let me get my coat.”

“And some ratty mittens. And get a pair for me,” Jenny calls after her as she lets the door slam in her face.

Crane’s sitting in the backseat of Jenny’s disgusting old wreck of a car. “I was informed this was a matter of some urgency,” he says, plucking at the hilarious bright orange hunter jacket she’d scrounged up for him from the county storage. He looks like a grumpy, elongated pumpkin. 

“Oh, it’s the urgency-est,” Jenny says, putting the car in reverse. “We’re going to get a Christmas tree.”

*

Of course Crane has no idea what’s going on — apparently Christmas trees hadn’t caught on by the time he got buried in that cave of his — which adds a whole new level of hilarity to the proceedings. They drag him around The Christmas Shoppe and he makes baffled faces at pretty much everything, and when they’re done loading up on lights and those little ball dangly things and a stand and a tree skirt — “Trees require clothing?” Crane asked — they head out back to pick the least shitty of all the shitty trees left.

Abbie’s always liked the pretty, short trees with nice needles that don’t look like they’re going to drop off in ten minutes; Jenny goes for the weird-looking runty ones, and that’s probably some kind of commentary on their personalities or something.

“Why not purchase two trees?” Crane asks.

Abbie and Jenny look at each other. “That’d be weird,” Jenny says.

“No more so than felling a tree, dragging it along with whatever wildlife it’s collected into your home, and then putting electrical lights upon its branches.”

“Man’s got a point,” Abbie says.

“Maybe two _small_ trees,” Jenny muses.

*

They end up getting three, if you count the tiny one Abbie grabs at the checkout stand because she sees Crane eyeing it wistfully. She makes him pay for it later, though, when they’re back at her place trying to remember how tree stands are supposed to go.

“You’re supposed to screw it in a little bit at a time,” Jenny protests, batting Abbie’s hands away from where she’s trying to get the tree in straight.

“I’m doing it fine, just go and make sure Crane’s not tipping it.”

There’s jostling and Jenny says, “Crane, tilt it more toward you.”

“There is a tree branch in my _left nostril_.”

“Stop being a baby. Okay, now tilt it a little bit away. Nope, too far. Okay now just freeze there.”

“The offending branch is still there.”

“Okay,” Abbie announces, “I think I got it.” She scrambles out from under the tree, which stays up for about five seconds after Crane lets it go before crashing slowly, almost gracefully, to the ground.

“Told you,” Jenny says.

*

The Christmas music, of course, gets a running commentary from both of them. "Man, I used to love this song," Jenny says.

"Yeah, I remember you did a little performance of it once when you were in like, first grade," Abbie says.

Crane takes a break from trying to figure out the hook-and-loop assembly of the dangly balls to stare at her. "From what I can determine, it seems to be a song about a young woman exchanging her virtue for material goods via some rather thinly-veiled euphemism," he says.

"Jeez, Spock, way to take all the fun out of it," Jenny says. "And I was six, I didn't know what it was  _about._ " Over the laptop's crappy speakers, Eartha Kitt is asking for a yacht.

"And now that you've been made aware?" Crane asks.

"Haven't met a whole lot of yacht-owning men in my life," Jenny sighs dramatically.

*

The lights are even trickier; they got two white strands and two multicolored blinky strands, but they get tangled pretty much as soon as Abbie takes them out of the box, and so there’s a lot of time spent arguing over which bulb is loose on which strand. Crane keeps himself tucked up on the couch, looking wide-eyed as they plug and unplug each strand to test it.

“Wait ’til we join them together, that’ll just blow your little mind,” Jenny tells him.

“Consider it already, as you say, blown,” Crane murmurs. “How do they not simply burn the house down?”

“You’re supposed to unplug them every night before going to bed,” Abbie says, “But I never heard of any house fires that were actually caused by Christmas lights. Might just be an urban legend.”

“Hopefully not like the urban legends we’ve been chasing all over town for the last few months,” says Jenny. 

Without looking up, Abbie raises her fist and gets a bump.

*

“I don’t understand why you felt compelled to assign this task to me,” Crane huffs, scowling down at the bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“You’re pretty good at it,” Abbie tells him. He’s already got four big long strands of popcorn finished, and the rest of the stuff in the bowl is little broken-type pieces; Abbie’s pretty sure he’s still going just out of spite.

“I’ve an undiscovered talent, it seems. Though again, I’m unsure why _I_ have been compelled to expand my horizons, as you say.”

“Because it’s a fun job, and this is your first Christmas in the twenty-first century,” Abbie lies. Mostly lies, anyway. She gave it to him because he’s better with needle and thread than she is — she’s seen him stitch up his raggedy coat enough times — and because of… other reasons.

“It’s because she doesn’t want to do it,” Jenny says, from where she’s curled up on the armchair behind the world’s biggest cup of hot chocolate. It’s basically a bowl with a handle and big ideas.

“It’s a cherished Mills tradition,” Abbie says, trying to glare meaningfully at Jenny, but there’s not much that’s meaner than a Mills sister who’s trying to give her sister a hard time.

“When we were little, Abbie used to stab herself in the finger all the time. Clumsiest girl in the world.” Jenny took a sip. “Why do you still do it, anyway?”

Abbie shrugs, because the first thing she wants to say is a lie, too, and Jenny’s always been way too good at calling her out when she’s not telling the truth. It’s a think Jenny has — always had, really — she’d never lie to avoid hurting feelings, or to get out of a bad situation. Whatever she says, it’s always the truth.

A sour, spiteful part of Abbie’s brain thinks that it’s no wonder Jenny spent so much time in loony bins.

The lights on the trees are up, though, and the little dangly ball things, and Abbie’s never collected Christmas ornaments so they’re just waiting on Crane to finish the decorating, and maybe she should try a little of what drove Jenny so crazy. “I didn’t,” she says, “Not since we got split up. Not ’til this year.”

“Because you finally have someone to do your bidding?” Crane mutters, still focused on the tiny crumb pieces he’s trying to thread together.

Abbie takes pity on him and pulls the bowl out of his lap. “Because I finally feel like I’ve got a family again to celebrate with,” she says.

“You sap,” Jenny says, nudging her leg with her foot. Abbie nudges back.

“If this is your methodology to persuade me into yet another round of popcorn threading,” Crane sighs, “It’s remarkably effective.”

“Awesome,” Abbie says. “I’ll make some more.”

“In the microwave?” Crane says, perking up. “May I observe?”

“God bless us,” Jenny laughs, “Every one.”


End file.
